🔴 LIVE NOW: Join our conversation with @seanvitka.bsky.social, @dell.bsky.social , John Dickas, and @trevortimm.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMP8...

Thanks to those who joined our conversation about Section 702 of FISA, and a special thanks to our panelists: @seanvitka.bsky.social, @dell.bsky.social, and John Dickas. Did you miss it? Watch it here:

Update: I think I may have applied a constraint that's not really in evidence w/ regard to the locations of VPN servers that might be subject to wiretapping. So I've updated this story to better clarify the scope of the potential surveillance.

NEW: The government tells Americans to use VPNs to protect their privacy. The government also automatically presumes communications of unknown origin are foreign. Foreign communications don't require a warrant to wiretap. Lawmakers who've done the math want answers. My latest @wired.com:

🔔 Section 702 of FISA, which enables spying on Americans while harming press freedom and source protection, is up for renewal in Congress. Join our conversation with @seanvitka.bsky.social, @dell.bsky.social, and John Dickas for more. 🗓️ March 26, 1:30 p.m. ET RSVP: freedom.press/section-702

Don’t let Congress renew the government’s FISA spy powers w/o privacy protections! Tell them to protect us from AI-powered surveillance first! Go to StopDangerousAI(dot)com or call 202-953-1892. Enter your zip, connect w/ your members' offices & we'll give you a sample script.

1/ As the US continues AI-enabled strikes on Iran, new @brennancenter.org research from @emileayoub.bsky.social and me examines how the military’s investments in the technology have been building to this moment. Congress must step up and reckon with AI’s dangers to life, liberty, and democracy 🧵:

NEW: A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill requiring warrants for FBI searches of Americans' communications under FISA, aligning federal law w/ a 2025 ruling that found the practice unconstitutional. It would also ban the government from buying Americans' private data from data brokers.

New Poll! Demand Progress and @dataforprogress.org found that Americans do not support the Trump admin’s plans to force AI companies to let them use their tech for military and surveillance.

Moreover, it appears that Sinema used campaign funds to buy a pair of vehicles for over $70K each, paid $30K to a company that outfits high-end camper vans, and then sold herself one of the vehicles (through an LLC) for just $17K.

I don’t like this

The NIH budget bill passed the House. Now, it's bundled w/ DHS funding in the Senate. We are likely to see a fight this week. New from me: things to know about the budget bill, NIH presidentialization, free speech, why science has been quiet, & more. At "Can We Still Govern" @donmoyn.bsky.social 🧪

BREAKING: Hundreds of sensitive U.S. records obtained by WIRED undercut the Trump administration’s claims portraying Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua as a unified terrorist force invading the country. Intelligence agencies spent much of 2025 unsure TdA even functioned as an organization on U.S. soil.

This angle. My god.

This is the video.

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

An ICE Air flight carried migrants from Alexandria, LA, to the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay today—the first migrants held at GTMO since October 17.

NEW: DHS secretly obtained Chicago police data on 900 residents accused of gang ties. It was quietly deleted after intelligence officers violated rules against domestic spying. The handoff came well after city inspectors formally announced CPD's gang data was deeply flawed and infected w/ bias.

Here we go again. Just like March @chuckschumer.com and Sen Dems will have a decision to make wrt whether to keep giving blank checks to the Trump regime: will they fight or they just meekly surrender in the name of bipartisanship? My case for why Ds must fight as polls & pol. dynamics favor them.

klein and thompson living up to the worst accusations of their critics tbh

Police have set up a checkpoint and appear to be stopping every single car on 14th st NW, between W+V, here in northwest DC. Some cars are being pulled over after being stopped. Some police are wearing “HSI police” vests (Homeland Security Investigations)

New WSJ poll: The Democratic Party is 30 points under water with registered voters, considerably worse than the GOP (-11). www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

“It’s a self-licking ice cream cone of crazy” former Congressman @denverr.bsky.social explains why Trump’s $10 billion dollar lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over the Epstein story may come back to haunt him.

What are we doing here, @whitehouse.senate.gov & @heinrich.senate.gov? How does this result in anything but a disaster that validates & normalizes Trump 2.0 "drill, baby, drill" agenda? Negotiating with Republicans, days after they passed the awful Reconciliation Bill, sends a terrible signal.

HERE’S WHERE WE ARE WITH THE AI MORATORIUM: They put the amendment in. They took the amendment out. They put the amendment in and they shook it all about. They did the Hokey Pokey and they turned themselves around. That’s what the Senate’s all about.

Last night, Republicans agreed to a so-called compromise on the AI moratorium. Don’t be fooled: This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and it will devastate state attempts to protect children online. That’s why I filed an amendment with @cantwell.senate.gov to strip this provision

Red alert for the big bill blocking state tech laws! There’s a new draft of the AI moratorium and it’s WORSE. The exceptions narrowed so “generally applicable” laws only survive if they do not create an “undue OR disproportionate burden” on AI. This creates huge uncertainty for which laws survive.

The best thing we can do now is flood Congress w/ calls to support the war powers resolutions blocking unauthorized war w/ Iran. Use our tools or call 1-833-STOP-WAR to connect w/ offices after entering your zip code. Please share so Congress knows we don't want war with Iran!

Former Obama Campaign Manager and Harris Campaign Senior Advisor David Plouffe has been announced as the latest member of crypto giant, Coinbase's "Global Advisory Council." This is another example of a DC insider cashing in by selling their influence to the highest bidder

Today the Senate Ag Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for Brian Quintenz, Trump's nominee to be chair of the CFTC. Quintenz was not only the quasi-lobbyist for Marc Andreessen's multi-billion dollar crypto VC fund, he stands to be the most powerful CFTC chair in memory

NEW: We've teamed up with Project South to sue the DHS and the FBI for failing to provide "Cop City" records on the surveillance of protesters www.rightsanddissent.org/news/defendi...

NEW: ICE has quietly rescinded a policy requiring agents to ensure courthouse raids don't clash with state and local laws. WIRED detected the missing language in a superseding memo posted to ICE's website this week. by me and @dmehro.bsky.social:

BREAKING an @axios.com: Our new poll tested how voters respond to populist arguments vs abundance-aligned arguments and found that voters clearly prefer populism. Importantly, this was true not just among Dems but also independents — and in some cases even Republicans.

Trump’s meme coin dinner borders on bribery. Buyers have thrown millions of dollars into Trump's crypto scheme to get special access to the president. America is NOT for sale, but it appears our president might be. End Trump's crypto corruption NOW. Join us Thursday ⬇️

NEW: “By withdrawing the CFPB’s data broker rulemaking, the Trump administration is ensuring that Americans will continue to be bombarded by scam texts, calls and emails," says Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress. A scoop:

The FBI says scammers posing as DHS agents are contacting foreigners (from UAE, Saudi, Qatar, and Jordan so far) who are studying in the U.S. or planning to do so, claiming they have immigration issues, and threatening prosecution or deportation if they don't pay. www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA...

Breaking news: @SpeakerJohnson is trying to stop Congress from investigating the admin through September by procedurally manipulating the rules around Resolutions of Inquiry. Vote is TOMORROW — and would stop, eg, inquiries into SignalGate, which otherwise can FORCE floor votes:

A group of NIH employees sent a letter to GOP senators explaining why an arbitrary 35 percent cut to contracts is completely absurd. "There are lives at stake."

Chair Comer denied our request for an official trip to El Salvador to advocate for due process and the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pretty shameful. Good thing I don’t need Comer’s permission to get on a plane.

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.

Van Hollen says that he asked the VP of El Salvador why his government continues to hold Abrego Garcia even though he’s not charged with any crime and there’s no evidence that he’s MS-13. “His answer was that the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT”

Here's Trump saying to Bukele that "homegrown criminals are next" and talking about how El Salvador will need to build "about five more places."

In light of the SCOTUS decision in the Maryland man rendition case, I urge @raskin.house.gov to lead a delegation to San Salvador to demand Abrego's immediate unconditional release into your custody. You'll have to fly commercial because we all know Trump will not make a USG plane available to you.

It's getting a lot of attn today. But even before today most of the country had very little idea of what has happened at NIH or through it the entire ecosystem of biomedical research in the US. Simply put, Musk, Kennedy & Trump exploded a bomb right in the middle of cancer cure research in the US.

NEW: WIRED has found even more Venmo accounts tied to Trump officials of Houthi-war-chat Signal fame, leaking personal contacts and financial transactions, including one payment from Trump's national security advisor, Mike Waltz, which simply reads: 🍆

Our official statement from Albert Sellars LLP on President Trump's recent executive order.

VERY IMPORTANT to label this as what it is, The Police State Executive Order. it's not an exaggeration. This is the inner wiring of a police state.

At a packed town hall Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern proposed a general strike to combat the Trump administration's assault on the federal government.

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH